There’s irony aplenty in this album’s title. The first studio output in five years from Athy’s favourite musical son proves that Jack L’s time away from songwriting has served him well: always a consummate live performer, these so-called Broken Songs make up his strongest studio collection yet.
Nobody ever denied the quality of Jack’s delivery. From the very early days, when he was merely an interpreter of the work of Brel, Cohen, Walker and Waits, even the deaf could feel Lukeman’s vocal power: normally at a gig, it’s the bass rumble that sets your trousers a billowing, but in the days of the Black Romantics, it was more likely to be Lukeman’s oral assault.
If anything, his voice is an even more incredible phenomenon now, a fuller, more rounded instrument that’s equally at home with the breathy whisper as the full-blown bellow (often in the same song – ‘I’ve Been Raining’), as capable of a tender caress and a cuddle on the couch as a night of seedy, sweaty copulation. The arrangements too seem more mature: the musical backdrop, while never short of interesting, is unfussy enough to let Jack’s voice soar and swoop, flow and eddy, just like it was born to.
‘Chocolate Eyes’ is one of the finest songs Lukeman has ever written, a soulful, seductive lullaby with a melody so hummable that it has radio hit written all over it. Elsewhere, ‘Authentic Fake’, with a guitar line reminiscent of Crowded House’s ‘Weather With You’, and the emotive ‘Open Your Borders’ prove that there’s no shortage of potential singles, while the tribal ‘Wicked Way’s raucous roar-along should make it a favourite at Jack’s incendiary live shows. There’s a timeless quality to songs like ‘Sweet Low Down’ and ‘Apes And Angels’ that should both seduce new listeners and appease diehard fans. Even the language he uses in his lyrics speaks of emotions as ancient as time itself: “If love is just for poets, then forever we’ll speak in rhyme” (‘Broken Songs’).
Jack L has always been a unique talent. With Broken Songs, he has the material to show off his remarkable vocal prowess to the full. A warm, intimate and well-rounded record, these songs are anything but broken and are more than capable of making him the international star he deserves to be.